good thursday morning, coming up on "early today." liar, liar. the u.s. state department has identified multiple areas where russia's putin is not telling the truth about the situation in ukraine. >> behind the rescue, police spoke to the minivan mom two hours before her faithful drives into the seas. >> guilty plea, a one star general involved in a sex assault case is expected to plead guilty. plus the s.a.t. tests stressing your kids are being overhauled. but first, heads roll in the

target credit card breach and thieves use a forklift at their local atm drive-thru. it's thursday, march 6th. "early today" starts right now. >> well, hello everybody. thanks for joining us. i'm betty nguyen. double trouble in the skies. a plane forced to make an emergency landing in texas. it happened right after take off in dallas last night. a passenger tweeted i'm hearing the cockpit was full of smoke. captain and flight attendant, i can't say thank you enough for getting us on the ground safely. none of the passengers or crew members was injured. also severe turbulence on a united airlines flight bound for newark from west palm beach. trays and drinks were flying all around. one flight attendant was injured but the plane landed safely late last night. now to a u.s. army one star

general facing a court marshall on sexual assault charges. jeffrey sinclair is accused of sexually assaulting a junior office. he maintains his innocence on allegations he forced her to perform sex acts. but his lawyer says he will admit guilt on three lesser charges including having improper relationships with two other officers. the married father of two is expected to enter his plea is court. he is the most senior member of the u.s. military ever to face trial on sexual assault. he could face life in prison if convicted. >> let's take you overseas to the on going situation in the ukraine. the new leader of the crimea region says pro-russian forces still control all access to the peninsula. all of this as wednesday's flurry of diplomatic activity produced little progress.

jim, it sounds like a little more of the same. >> reporter: betty, well, that's right. still, secretary of state john kerry is being positive about the diplomacy saying that talks with his russian counter part were tough but constructive. still one of the key goals of the paris talks was to get the russian and ukrainian board minister face to face in the same room but that never happened. the russians say that the new interim government in kiev was put in place by an unconstitutional coup. so when he was asked if he had met his ukrainian counterpart he he replied, who's that? russia and the u.s. are trying to find a compromise out of the current crisis. also vladimir putin had another phone conversation with the german chancellor merkel and exchanged views on an end game.

meantime, they're meeting to perhaps decide on sanctions against russia today in brussels but there's growing signs of tension with many of them in the west like germany that believe that sanctions against russia will only backfire. back to you. >> a lot of issues at play. we do appreciate it. a war of words on capitol hill during a hearing on the irs. the agency still accused of targeting conservative groups. lois lerner took the 5th as expected but it's the explosive fireworks afterward that are making news. the republican chairman went into the hearing and cut the mic of the committee's top democrat e elijah cummings. >> i'm a member of the united states of america. >> 700,000 people.

you cannot have a one sided investigation. there is absolutely something wrong with that and it's absolutely un-american. >> the public spat even caught colleagues by surprise. one seeing he had never seen anything like it during his tenure in congress. >> from the halls of congress to a decision being felt in the halls of every american high school. the s.a.t. test. yes, that can make or break college dreams and it's getting an extreme makeover. >> caylee is among 1.5 million students taking the s.a.t. every year. >> did you stress out about this a lot? >> yes, i was cramming every single night. >> reporter: many spend months and thousands of dollars preparing. >> it's a game. what you learn is strategies to play the game. what you do on the s.a.t. isn't even what you're doing in high school. >> reporter: the president of the college board explains that's about to change. >> there's no mystery as to what